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| The USS Sable |
 On August 1, 1942, the Carrier Qualification Training Unit (CQTU) officially began operations. Brainchild of Commander Richard F. Whitehead of the Ninth Naval district, the CQTU fulfilled the need for carrier operations training in the safety of the Great Lakes, beyond the reach of German & Japanese submarines operating in coastal waters. Under Commander Whitehead's direction, two coal-burning Great Lakes paddlewheeled excursion ships, the Seeandbee and the Greater Buffalo, were converted into flattops. Refitted with a wooden flight deck on a steel structure, they were renamed the USS Wolverine (IX-64) and the USS Sable (IX-81). They were to be the only inland aircraft carriers ever commissioned by the U.S. Navy and became part of a fleet familiarly known as the "Corn Belt Fleet".
The two carriers, based at Chicago, trained pilots & flight deck personnel seven days a week, year round, throughout the war. Together they logged over 135,000 landings and qualified over 15,000 Navy & Marine Corps pilots, among them a young aviator named George Bush who would later become President. The Naval Air Primary Training Command was established by the Secretary of the Navy on October 1, 1942, and Glenview was placed under its command. Approximately 9,000 men received their primary flight training at Glenview during the war years, flying 786,928 daylight hours & 27,425 night flight hours. A total of 15 outlying airfields were used by Glenview, from Volo and Grays Lake down to Schaumburg (some with names like Melody Farm, Murphy's Circus and Prall's Pit). The cadets logged over 2,225,000 takeoffs & landings.
Manning the outlying fields could be a lonely job at times, particularly in bad weather. The January 8, 1943 issue of the Exhaust (NRAB Glenview's original newspaper) printed a report from Site 8, Schaumburg Field in Roselle, that included: "The wind sure does howl and blowout this way and loneliness sometimes gets you, but we overcome this by holding discussions, on current events, with the field mice."
There are many stories of high seas "hi jinks" involving the Great Lakes carrier fleet. According to Ensign Sam Sturgis, who qualified on the Sable during World War II, an Army Air Corps pilot assigned to Chanute Field near Chicago was giving his new co-pilot an airborne tour of Chicago one day aboard a Douglas C-47 transport plane.
The pilot spotted the Wolverine and decided to have some fun. He maneuvered the C-47 out into the landing pattern, lowered his wheels and flaps, and headed down toward the Navy flattop. Being a large transport, the C-47 was much too big to land on the Wolverine's deck. As he approached, the pilot never saw so many signal flares and lights come on at one time. At the last moment, the pilot hauled up his plane's landing gear, pulled back on the throttles, and headed back to Chanute.
Aside from the C-47 visit, the Wolverine also had the privilege of temporarily being the flagship of the U.S. Navy. On Oct. 27, 1942, the ship flew the four-star flag of the Commander-in- Chief of the United States Fleet and Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Ernest J. King. If for only a few hours, the Wolverine became the only Great Lakes naval vessel to be flagship of the United States Navy.
The Sable, however, won the fame competition in the end. A young 20-year old lieutenant from Texas made his carrier qualifications aboard the ship on Aug. 24, 1943. That pilot, now former President George Bush recalled his training experience: "I remember those Great Lakes flights very well in the open cockpit that winter. Coldest I ever was in my life."
-From the Wisconsin Maritime Museum's Fall 2003 newsletter. Read more at their website here and make sure you check out the very in-depth Paddle Wheel Aircraft Carriers blog.
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